Town of New Paltz may establish emergency services center

NEW PALTZ >> Town leaders are considering whether to develop an emergency services center at the corner of Henry W. Dubois Drive and North Putt Corners Road.

The facility would be at the current site of the New Paltz Fire Department Station 2 building.

“We’re looking at funding an emergency services center which will encapsulate the fire department, the EMS people and the police department,” said town grants consultant Victor Cornelius.

Plans for the project initially were developed about 10 years ago, but it wasn’t until funding from the New York Rising storm-recovery program became available that there was money available.

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“We’ll be utilizing illustrations and plans that they’d already developed,” Cornelius said, “(but) we’re going to run up new estimates because it will make it look like a shovel-ready project.”

Town officials estimate the project would cost up to $7 million and that some of the money is being sought from the state’s Community Development Block Grant program.

“It’s got a good shot because we’re calling it an emergency service center,” Cornelius said. “There’s actually enough space in the illustrated rendering of the building to house people on a temporary overnight basis should that be required.”

Town Supervisor Susan Zimet said consideration was given to locating the emergency center at the town police department on South Putt Corners Road, but “it seems like the access for the fire trucks and the emergency vehicles to get out of (the fire station) site ... is much easier.”

“When we we’re doing a meeting with the emergency services (officials), what was said to us was that during Hurricane Irene (in 2011) ... it was very difficult for all the emergency responders to get together,” Zimet said. “The fire department had to leave the fire house to get to a meeting to talk to the rescue squad and the police department, and it was really cumbersome during the emergency to provide the services.”

Cornelius said the new center, if built, would have its own source of electricity.

“We would move to install solar (energy panels) at this site, which could be taken off the grid to power that facility in the case of the collapse of electricity,” he said.